Tuesday, May 6, 2008

My Redneck Weekend

This past weekend, some of my friends from work headed out to the desert for the Stagecoach Festival, which is a 3-day country music festival out in Indio (about 25 miles east of Palm Springs). For you Coachella Music Festival fans, Stagecoach is held at the same venue as Coachella, just a week later...with a lot more rednecks, and a little less pot. But probably the same amount of alcohol...if not more. Them country folk can DRINK.

In fact, alcohol will be the first topic I will hit in this post. Now I like to have a couple drinks now and again (heck, you can find me at Pepper's for most Taco Tuesdays downing margaritas like they're going out of style), but these people were unstoppable. It was in the upper 90's outside... it was scorching, and downright uncomfortable. By the time we arrived, any patch of ground that had any shade had already been claimed hours ago. So when you're looking at sitting in the hot sun for 5 hours before the sun goes down, alcohol doesn't sound appealing to you. However, everyone else thought that getting absolutely trashed before 3pm was a fantastic idea...those beers were looking mighty good to them. But the bottled water looked like the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. I couldn't get enough of it. Or is THIS the sexiest thing you've ever seen?Not the dude...the hat. Look closely. Yes, that hat is made from a Miller beer box. These babies were a hot ticket item...if a guy wasn't wearing a cowboy hat, he was wearing a beer box hat. You know some drunk fool discovered it by mistake...they were piss drunk in their double wide trailer, and accidentally slapped the beer box on their head instead of their Stetson, and eureka! A white trash discovery! If only I'd thought of such a thing...I'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

We spent so much money on staying hydrated, while everyone around us was downing the liquor, pretending as if they weren't at the fairgrounds with 50,000 people and 100 porta-potties. In other words, what goes in must come out eventually. Here's a look at "Hell's Kitchen" before it was destroyed by drunk rednecks.As the weekend wore on, the porta-potty quality deteriorated...the festival crew really did the best they could, but with that many intoxicated people in hot weather, that is an uphill battle you are not likely to win. A STINKY uphill battle. By Sunday evening, people were lined up and down the row of porta-potties waiting for someone to emerge so they could pounce on the grossness. It was eat or be eaten. Or rather, pee or be peed on. Here's EVERY female's porta-potty experience...

Walking up to the door of the throne you've chosen, you're praying, "God, please let me have picked a good one. Just this once." Then you open the door slowly (with as few fingers as possible), still praying. You quickly survey the floor for, um, obstructions. Then you QUICKLY step inside, so as to not let the nasty, potentially peed-on door smack you in the butt. You lock the door with the same fingers you opened the door with(I HOPE you lock it...during one visit, I neglected to lock the door...you can guess what happened to me 15 seconds later, mid-squat...talk about the walk of SHAME afterwards). You glance at the toilet seat to see what you're up against, then you notice the tiny urinal to your left, and for a moment, you know it's good to be male at a place like this. Bastards. But this is no time to loathe the opposite sex, you've got to get business done. FAST. Because you haven't dared to breathe in for the last 17 seconds. Now comes the dance...you frantically shimmy out of your pants that are stuck to you because you're so sweaty, while being careful not to touch anything...and you quickly position yourself over the pit to complete the deed (while balancing your sunglasses on the top of your head...your vision CANNOT be compromised while in this chamber of grossness), and crossing your fingers you don't miss, or get splashbacks. Your legs are starting to get tired from the unnatural position. Then you realize you didn't do a toilet paper check before you committed to this potty, and you scan the premises. You see a roll of toilet paper on the floor. And it's wet. Well, crap. The only option is to drip dry. But you still haven't breathed in, so you quickly do "the shake", get your drawers up as fast as you can, and prepare for your exit. Using the same fingers that opened and locked the door, you emerge. But don't breathe yet. This is where rookies slip up...that funk hangs HEAVY in the air outside the potties, so you have to remove from yourself from the entire porta-potty area before taking that first sweet breath in. After your face has returned to it's normal color from not breathing for so long, you get the Purell out of your purse. Apply to hands liberally. Twice.

Grossed out yet? I just talked about porta-potties for a sizeable amount of this post, so you should be. I know I'm queasy just re-living it.

But let's switch gears, and talk about the music for a minute. There were some great acts there...Halfway to Hazard, Taylor Swift (actually, she wasn't so great...yikes.), Gretchen Wilson, Trace Adkins, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Chuck Wicks, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, and a bunch more I didn't see, as there were 3 stages at this festival. But my whole reason for going was to see the Judds reunite for the first time in 7 years. And it was unbelievable. They were worth every penny I spent on tickets, worth the incredibly long walk from the parking lot, worth the gas it took to drive out there, and worth the potential hepatitis from the porta-potties. Seeing Wynonna is a spiritual experience for me (after the show, I told Lancie that Wynonna is like going to 'musical church'), and this show was nothing less, if not better since it was The Judds! They did an amazing show, and even those that didn't know much about them before that night couldn't deny how great they were. Maybe it was just me and my weird attachment to this mother/daughter duo, but you could feel that you were in the presence of something special that night. In short...it ruled.

A few more pictures from the weekend...

L to R: Me, Lancie, and Terri

L to R: Me, Jessica, and Terri.In both these photos, we're just trying to avoid heat stroke. And by the way, what a great group to travel with...everyone was easy going, fun, and made the best of a potentially crappy situation with it being as hot as it was. We just hung in there together, and made the most of it. And it was beyond worth it, once the sun went down. I will gladly go back to the scorching desert with these ladies next year!

Redneck art....Nothing like a good piece of ass.

Oh, the people-watching!!! Arguably, the best part of the weekend (next to the music). These were our lovely neighbors on Sunday...these two were obnoxiously all over each other all day. They were the reason the term "Dude, get a room!" was invented. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I didn't take video of this young lady gyrating up and down on her boyfriend's lap. You're only getting a still photo. They made a trip to the porta potty not look so bad...

Matching your underwear to your beach chair does not a classy girl make. What you can't see in this picture is that the top elastic of her underwear says 'I LOVE ME' across it.

At least this guy is honest. I was hoping to get a shot of him while he was wearing his hunting hat and smoking a cigarette to give you the full effect, but he kept turning the other way, so this was the best shot I got.

The sunset on Sunday night...what a fun weekend!NOTE: Monday morning...I felt totally hungover. And I didn't have a drop of alcohol to drink all weekend. I was just THAT tired. But I'd do it all over again....

I laughed so hard at this post...the thong comment was CLASSIC. And the fact that it said "I love me"...goodness.

AS for your porta-potty experience, seriously, my dream is using one of those self-cleaning public restrooms. The ones that won't give you herpes just by looking at them. Guys don't realize how good they have it.

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